Connoisseur Cruisetour and Island Princess SB

[Planning is Half the Fun]

You've been incredibly helpful, I've taken notes and shared them with our team. We know when (if we have the same schedule as you did) we'll get a second shot to do things, where we want to have dinner and lunch each day, that the dinner on Saturday is actually worth giving up some of our port time in Ketchikan - my group of 12 is super slow about making decisions. Now at least we can each make informed decisions.

 

I hope today the wonderfulness outweighs the sadness of it ending.

 

If you make it back online, I'd love to hear about your weather, the ship activities you participated in, your port time, everything you liked & didn't like.

 

We leave town this Saturday. Reading your thread was like a vacation preview to me. THANK YOU.

[Davistx1]

Sorry so slow-Day 7 Dinner menu..this was a fun night!!

[Davistx1]

You've been incredibly helpful, I've taken notes and shared them with our team. We know when (if we have the same schedule as you did) we'll get a second shot to do things, where we want to have dinner and lunch each day, that the dinner on Saturday is actually worth giving up some of our port time in Ketchikan - my group of 12 is super slow about making decisions. Now at least we can each make informed decisions.

 

I hope today the wonderfulness outweighs the sadness of it ending.

 

If you make it back online, I'd love to hear about your weather, the ship activities you participated in, your port time, everything you liked & didn't like.

 

We leave town this Saturday. Reading your thread was like a vacation preview to me. THANK YOU.

 

 

I am so glad you enjoyed it!! We had such a great trip!!

 

First, I want to put in a good word for Louise McMahon...she has a beautiful voice and plays the piano and guitar...for our week she was mostly in the Bayou Cafe...really, really awesome...check her out!

 

Our weather was pretty rainy but we still had a great time. It was mostly just drizzly and would come and go not a constant downpour. Weather did not affect any of the activities we had planned but some of the flights did get cancelled in Skagway because it was rainy and foggy there.

 

Alfredo's in Sabatini's is awesome on sea days. We tried the Bayou Cafe, maybe it was an off night but it was not our favorite...the service was great but didn't love the food. We also ate in Sabatini's one night and the food and service was excellent. We also went to afternoon tea one day and that was fun too. The MDR food and service was really good too. My favorite for this trip was the Coconut Curry Halibut on the Skagway night.

 

In Glacier Bay, we booked The Sanctuary for the day and had such a good time. It was $60/person for a lounger (they had cabanas too but I don't remember the cost) and no you don't "need" to do this but we really had fun with it. The package includes a ton of food that they keep bringing around...I seriously couldn't believe they kept coming around with more. It also included an ear warmer fleece and a Glacier Bay photo. It rained a little on our day and they had golf umbrellas for everyone. It was a really fun splurge for us.

 

In Skagway, we did the Yukon Discovery tour with Frontier Excursions. We decided not to do the train in Skagway so this was a small bus to the Yukon and back. We made many scenic stops along the way. It was really interesting because the weather in Skagway was really bad but by the time we made it to Emerald Lake, the sun was shining. Here is my fave pic from this tour...even the tour guide grabbed his camera for this one.

 

In Juneau, we did Mendenhall and Whale Watching Photo Safari with Gastineau Guiding. This was the only excursion I booked through the ship. First we did a nature walk through a forest near Mendenhall Glacier...from the trail we had great views of Mendenhall and Nugget Falls and at the end, we got to see salmon running. There was a chance for bears but there were none feeding when we were there. Then we went whale watching...Gastineau has custom designed boats that sit close to the water level and the windows swing up for taking photos. We saw bubble net feeding and orcas on our day...it was awesome!

 

In Ketchikan, I booked Traitor's Cove Bear Watch through Island Wings. This was AWESOME!! We saw probably 10 bears at 2 different locations. We saw mother and Cubs and also got to see big males. The guide first took us to the lake observation point because he had seen a bear there on his last tour. When we got there, she was still there plus at least 4 more bears...this was where we saw the cub.

[mzlinda]

I was on this cruise last week too. I thought it was fantastic and I agree that Louise was a highlight.

 

I don't eat any fish or seafood at all so dinner was a bit challenging for me. I'm assuming the menus were so heavy in fish and seafood because it was an Alaska cruise. In spite of that, I thought the MDR dinners were outstanding, and those chocolate desserts....oh my!!!

 

We went to Sabatinis for dinner on the 2nd or 3rd night. My entrée was stuffed chicken and my friend had lobster 3 ways. They sat 4 or 5 tables of people pretty much all at the same time and our waitress seemed to be running ragged the whole time. We were underwhelmed by both the food and the service. In fact, we left that dinner and cancelled our reservation for the Bayou. We found food and service in the MDR was better.

 

As for excursions, we took the White Pass Railway up and back in Skagway. We also did the dogsled/musher's camp there.

 

In Juneau, we did a helicopter tour to Mendenhall Glacier. There are 3 versions of this tour, depending on how long you actually want to walk around on the glacier. We took the shortest 1 which was perfect for us. Although it was not raining while we were there, recent rain made the glacier very slippery so I was glad we weren't hiking around on it for too long . The helicopter drops you off at the Glazier and goes back to get another group of people. Then a helicopter comes back to pick you up and drops off a new round of people. A storm was just blowing in as we left the glacier. We heard that a group of people were stuck on the glacier for three hours during the storm, but that didn't happen to us thankfully. We also heard from our pilot that dog mushing in Juneau was canceled due to weather so we were glad we went in Skagway.

 

In Ketchikan we went to the lumberjack show then walked to the salmon ladder in the pouring rain. Didn't see any salmon on the ladder but we spotted a few along the way.

 

Speaking of spotting, we saw a hand full of bald eagles on our trip, and more than a few whales, but no bears. However we didn't take any wildlife excursions so we were happy with what we saw from the ship.

Edited August 20, 2016 by mzlinda